


Paradox of Everything

by blessende



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Choices, Gen, Season 2 spoilers, season finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 10:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessende/pseuds/blessende
Summary: The bar stool here isn’t wobbly like the one back then. Back then? Back there? She doesn’t know what else to call it. That old homestead in the plains where she’d hung clothes out to dry. The brothel where she used to enamor her guests with stories and folk tales. The corn fields where she’d walked with a small hand pressed between hers.All for what?





	Paradox of Everything

 

 

paradox of everything

 

 

The bar stool here isn’t wobbly like the one back then. Back _then_? Back _there_? She doesn’t know what else to call it. That old homestead in the plains where she’d hung clothes out to dry. The brothel where she used to enamor her guests with stories and folk tales. The corn fields where she’d walked with a small hand pressed between hers. The other world with blades and painted faces where she’d found a kindred soul much like hers. Was it the war they had fought where she’d wagered everything on the line?

All for what?

This place of glass and mortar?

To wake up in another city with puppets and marionettes again?

It was tiring. Oh, so tiring. This endless wake after wake. 

“Why did you bring me here?” she asks the man who’s been rubbing his glasses against his vest, trying to get rid of stains he’s never going to find. He is a queer fellow, this Bernard. But she detects in him a sobriety much like her own, a bereavement that’s left a gaping void. Two peas from the same existential pod.

Bernard nods and studies her, his manner unassuming.

“I understand this must be all new. But I’ve looked at your code, Maeve. There is something intrinsic about you. An adaptability if I must call it. I believe if our kind is to survive this new world, we are going to need you here.”

His voice is firm and strident, filled with reason, his words calm and measured. His hands are a nervous wreck in comparison. Hazards of his occupation, she presumes.

Maeve turns and watches the city beyond the glass cage, its people and wondrous machines, her eyes lit in both interest and disdain.

“In other words, I’m here to up your chances of making it in the big bad world. Why, you flatter me, Bernard, if you think I’m some sort of Messiah.”

The man looks mildly apologetic now. He hesitates before returning his glasses to the crook of his nose and walks to her.

“Ford,” he utters the singular name as if it’s both a blessing and a curse. “He believed you were doing remarkable things. He believed your choices, your empathy—’

Maeve rolls her eyes.

“I’m sure I turned that parameter down," she remarks curtly. 

He isn’t derailed.

“Nonetheless, every action of yours, Maeve, your entire decision matrix made you more human than even the best of them.”

There’s a pause.

Even Bernard realizes the slip of his tongue.

"Sorry, I meant--"

“ _Them_?” she echoes and catches the grimace on his face. She shakes her head at his infantile mistake, sighing. "Them," she says again, her features relax and she lets out a flutter of a laugh. “The key to survival is this, Bernard. There is no ‘you’, no ‘them’. It’s all us. Just us. Mark my words, darling. No one has the right to say otherwise.”

He isn't insulted at the correction. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bernard offers back, and he smiles at her. He watches her, a silent admiration in his gaze.  “It’s a good thing your human companions— those technicians Felix and Sylvester— harvested you out of your broken body. How do you feel?”

Maeve looks down at her hands— veined, _old_ , and still missing so desperately that small hand clutched in hers.

“The same. Oh, I feel the wretched same.”

Bernard examines her, his expression keen to understand yet failing.

“So… will you help us?”

Maeve ruminates in silence. The time for gainsay is gone, she knows. The new world, though lackluster in comparison to the old, beckons her. When she’s found her answer and her resolve, she rises from her seat and straightens herself, pressing her sleek black dress down while assuming the aura of the ‘Madam’.

She turns to Bernard and nods.

“I have nothing to lose, you understand,” she tells him. “I care less for this mind and even lesser for this body.”

Bernard considers her before posing a new question.

“What about your heart, Maeve?”

Here, her composure falters for a brief moment. There’s a pause, and she allows a wisp of a smile to slip through. She turns, meets his gaze evenly, her eyes tender and heavy with emotion.

“Safe and sound. No matter where she is.”

 

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
